


Post life

by imladrissun



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 14:01:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15797997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imladrissun/pseuds/imladrissun
Summary: Love, post wartime, post being busy.





	Post life

**Author's Note:**

> A reimagining of the HP world.

They had done so much for security for so many years -- everything had been fake. Relationships, actions, plots, to the point that reality itself had felt strange. Remus had felt relief when the war had ended and the lies finally dissipated. Severus had been the public nuisance to Lupin to keep anyone else from giving him problems. 

Dumbledore had been the mastermind of it all. Lupin didn't mind any of the deceptions, as long as they all lived to see another day. He had gotten used to being the 'father' of Tonks' child; the real father had died fighting the good fight. Many deaths on the side of the allies had been kept secret. Even now, many people didn't know who had fought on what side, or who had done battle. 

Lupin had grown so worried that Severus would die in the conflict that he accepted his increasingly extreme security measures without complaint. He missed him, yes, but as long as there was hope it would all end, it was better than knowing Severus had been killed. 

They had been together since after school had ended, but always as a secret. Snape ran a clandestine chemist shop that sold potions not usually available on the regular market -- many were experimental, and he worked with his clients to improve the formula for their personal use. From chronic illness, genetic problems expressed in medical issues, mental health concerns and other things, he created drugs for all categories. Lupin knew he was lucky to have the best wolfsbane potion money could buy.

Actually, having it personally tailored to him, to the point where his transformation wasn't painful and sometimes was blocked completely, was priceless. Severus was very quiet in private, even after all these years. He didn't care for gratitude or praise, not even when he had free medicines smuggled to poor areas. 

He also didn't really mind the wolf. Lupin had resisted at first, when he suggested they see if he could 'learn' as a wolf. That night in the shack, all those years ago, Lupin had simply barked at him in recognition, not aggression. Now with a more advanced potion, he had made a lot of progress. Severus had taught him a rudimentary communication method, and they continued to test and refine it when he was the wolf. He had clear memories of it now, and felt more of a continuity to his time as an animal. 

Severus was surprisingly timid with him when he was like that, to his surprise. Someone so skilled at magic could kill him before he could pounce or hurt him, but Snape didn't act like that. He usually waited until Lupin-as-wolf made the first move and rubbed his nose against his knee. Later on during that time, after he'd gotten over that initial fear, he would pet him with a gentle back of a hand. Once he had been so exhausted from his work as a chemist [half of which seemed to be research and trials] that he'd fallen asleep using the giant fluffy animal's belly as a pillow. 

Lupin didn't tell him the extraneous details of being a wolf, like the fact that he always knew it was him before he saw him [even as a human] solely due to the fact that he smelled like lavender soap. [He constantly washed his hands during experiments, and sometimes before or after administering medicine.] As the wolf, he didn't like that Severus was afraid of him at first, he could sense his hesitation and how he seemed to still freeze instinctually sometimes. 

He had never realized how tactile he was even as a human until he had rarely been able to even see Severus, near the end of the war. There had always been something different about him, and it turned out the part that wasn't a chemistry genius was barely connected to wizard blood. Severus was almost a muggle, but not quite. And it turned out he was active in that world as well. He had a life Remus knew nothing about, he thought ruefully and stopped suddenly -- no, this was yet another life he didn't know about. 

And yet he could not begrudge him his focus on chemistry as a way to cure disease. He had lessened Lupin's own burden quite a bit, and only because he'd chosen to. The endless research and work had culminated in great results. When they were together, though, Severus often wasn't there with him emotionally. He was a million miles away. 

Remus could both sense it and see it in his eyes. He would often hold him gently and talk about things that didn't matter while Severus didn't react or even seem to notice he was being a little manhandled. He sometimes fell asleep on Lupin, which touched him. He valued his trust. Because of the farce of their public distaste for each other, no one suspected that Remus would be the only way to get to him. He was indeed the only one who could get into his rooms, even. 

Now that the war had ended, Remus found himself afraid of what would happen, for no particular reason. It made no sense, but there it was. It wasn't like Snape had somewhere to rush off to now, and neither did he. He stayed with him at a house Snape had in the country; it had enormous greenhouses and gardens to supply his potion making. He both sold the chemist patents and the actual potions themselves. They were finally living together in public, and Remus had barely noticed it happening. 

Severus had simply told him to get his things and stay with him while he worked on his medicine. Of course, that had been the kind of white lie he would use but it had taken Remus quite a bit to realize that it had been an excuse. Co-habitating was everything he'd wanted all these years, but he still found himself restless to the point of spying on Snape as he mixed potions, read journals and articles, translated foreign potions books, and looked after all the plants. 

He became a kind of assistant to Severus, who didn't comment on it. He just gently corrected him. Lupin didn't wake up from the dreamy stupor of this existence for a few months, then one day stopped in the middle of cutting up a little cucumber for a potion Snape was working on he turned to him. "What are we doing?" he said, astounded. He often did the cutting for Severus as he had much thicker skin on his hands and it made it less of a problem if he accidentally cut himself. He didn't want the other risking his hands like that. 

Severus looked up from the two books, propped open, that he had been consulting beside the microscope on the granite table. [He'd quite liked it, black marble with strange veins of gold in it.] "We're doing step 47." He returned to his books. 

Remus just stood there for a moment, agape. He thought the answer to his own question -- what they were doing is that they were practically married. He always responded to his more animal desire with sincerity, even though Snape often seemed to want comfort and drowsing doing nothing more than anything else. Sometimes he broke in on Remus' continual chatter to share something he'd been thinking about. It was invariably something about science, potions or medical treatments but he liked how he deliberately broke it down for him and used accessible language. He included him. That was one of Lupin's favorite things. 

He went and visited the kids once in a while, and Harry and the rest would ask after Snape. Remus wasn't sure how much they knew, or how much he felt comfortable with them knowing. He said he was staying with a friend, in terms of himself. After all this time he didn't want to deal with their questions and shock, why tell them at all? He and Snape had a bond that he treasured, he wanted to keep it safe, and so it had to be secret. 

Snape never cared where he went or what he did, not that any of it was dangerous. He knew he was free. That made him even more clingy, somehow, but Severus never seemed to care about it. He let him be his assistant when he wanted and not when he didn't.


End file.
